Anniversary
by Ms Arano
Summary: Other things may change us, but we start and end with family. [This is the ending that is the beginning of something more.][COMPLETE]


**Title**: Anniversary  
**Author**: Arano Honou  
**Fandom**: Yu Yu Hakusho  
**Genre**: General, Angst  
**Rating**: T  
**Warnings**: Death, though nothing explicit; Extreme vagueness, which is for my amusement in seeing just how many people -- do, and do not -- get it; Run-on-sentences, because for some reason they give me the feeling of being in the eye of the storm, and I find it intoxicating.  
**Word Count**: 786  
**Summary**: Other things may change us, but we start and end with family  
**Disclaimer**: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho in any way, shape, or form. Any infringement in unintentional. I only own that which I made -- The rest is cannon and belongs to Tagashi-sama. The summary does not belong to me either -- Anthony Brandt said it first.  
Author's Notes are at the bottom

* * *

Traditions are very important things. 

_ She is old now as she wasn't then, wrinkled and withered and wasted away under the burden of her years._

They define culture and self, bringing order to the chaos that is our perception of the world around us.

_He is dead now as he wasn't then, uncaring and undefined and unchanged from the passage of years that were never his._

They are our stability, our amaranthine rock, the pedestal that holds what we would honor.

_The Place is not as deserted as It is every other day of the year, because She has entered It, and now ghosts fill It to the brim._

They are our prison, our ball and our chain, and the deep dark water in which we would drown.

_She takes another step forward, and hates herself for it._

In the hands of the knowing, they are a sword, a shield, and a comfort.

_They had thought, "This One will be different, for we shall love This One as our own."_

In the hands of the ignorant, they are the dagger laid in the crib.

_They were fools._

So what happens when a person has a tradition that may as well be the dagger that plunges into his or her heart, knowing all the while that it is that person's hands around the hilt?

_He was born to the daughter of the greatest Elder, and for this, He lived._

It's really very simple.

_He was born from the cursed seed of a male, and for this, He died._

With each time they repeat their tradition...

_Another step, and She can see His tomb._

...the dagger goes just the slightest bit deeper...

_There is no Name inscribed, because Name's hold Power, and She didn't want any of that concerning Him._

...just a bit closer to the Lifeblood...

_They didn't even want to give him a tomb, but sometime in the night, His body disappeared._

...causing infinite amounts of pain all the while...

_She didn't know Why She had done it, brought His body to this Place, and given Him a proper burial._

...untill finally...

_After all, He had killed Her mother._

...it all spills out.

_Of course, He had killed many others, too, but She had stopped his heart for that last one._

Sometimes the emotions the person had locked into his or her heart kills them as it all comes out in a torrent.

_She could still remember the smell of blood as both She and He looked at Her mother -- She in disbelief, He in dawning horror._

Sometimes the person lives through it, and is better for it.

_He had looked at her, eyes asking just what had he just **DONE** and he didn't understand and why why **why**..._

Sometimes the person is just stuck there, half dead and half alive, trying to scream with no sound.

_She has reached the tomb now, and kneels before where She knows His body to be._

Three possibilities, all depending on your heart.

_He had started shaking, seeming to take half an eternity to sob and fall to his knees, clutching his necklace._

Are you strong enough to live?...

_That had had her moving, body on automatic while the mind was still in shock._

...Weak enough to die?...

_Gilded words like, "It will be alright" had fallen from her lips as she struggled to hold him through his shaking._

...Or are you damned to be forever suspended between the two?

_"...I'm sorry..."_

To have your soul torn in two and being unable to do anything about it?

_"...I know...I am too..."_

To not care if you died or if you lived so long as it would just --

_So at that He had sighed and half-hugged Her, and She had done the same as She laid Her hand across His chest and waited as His heart slowed and stuttered and stopped and Her mother's body lie just a few feet away with her blood staining the snow and that was how they were all found hours later._

-- stop --

_It had all been very tragic, really, because, in the end, she still took care of him._

-- hurting...

_It's starting to snow at the Place, but She is old and the so is the Cold, and It and She have long been friends._

Traditions are very important things.

_She sighs._

They help us remember that we are alive.

_"Hello again, once more it is that time of year, _Otouto_..." _

* * *

_"I will return before the solstice."_

_"Yes, Elder. Have a safe journey."_

* * *

Translations  
Otouto--Younger Brother

* * *

Author's Notes  
**FIVE MILLION BROWNIE POINTS TO THOSE WHO KNOW WHO "SHE" IS!** _cough _Meant to have this up about two days ago, but school decided to go crazy on me.  
This is... ah, well, it's actually a backstory to a backstory that in my world, is canon for YYH. One day _coughmaybecough _I'll actually get around to writing that backstory, and the world will tremble in either fear... or laughter at my pitiable attempt.  
Didn't understand something about the story? Drop me a message, and I might tell you what it means...  
...maybe...  



End file.
